


sanguine; sanguine

by holograms



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Gen, Jaime isn't present but he's discussed, Podrick is a good squire, Post-Battle care
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2020-06-26 15:31:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19771168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holograms/pseuds/holograms
Summary: "You fight like the Warrior," Pod tells her.Pod taking care of Brienne, after her fight with the Hound.





	sanguine; sanguine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [forpeaches (bluecarrot)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluecarrot/gifts).



Ser - _lady_ Brienne yells at Pod for letting Arya slip their guard, and then her words slur and she sways on her feet and then collapses onto the ground, out cold.

_No no no_ he kneels next to her and her body is limp and she’s bloody but he finds a pulse and then he can breathe again.

“My lady?” His voice sounds so quiet, all alone. Louder: “Lady Brienne?”

She doesn’t respond. He dares to gently poke at her face — still nothing — and then he shakes her shoulder and begs her to wake up but she does not.

“Fuck,” Pod says to the mountain air.

He drags her away from the cliff face. It takes a while, she’s heavy, bigger than him and wearing full armor and is dead weight, but he is determined. He places her where it’s safe — safer — to under a covering so they’re hidden from view.

He examines her injuries. Dark bruises are already forming around her eyes, her is nose bloody — probably broken. Cuts line her face, blood is smeared on her mouth and chin that runs down her neck. One of her bottom teeth is chipped, but he isn’t sure if it wasn't like that before. Blood is matted in her hair, and a chuck of it ripped out. Most concerning is the red at the seat of her trousers, wet new blood between her legs.

He doesn’t see any visible wounds from blade, but she’s wheezing and he’s afraid she’s injured underneath her armor. He needs to check for broken bones, so he carefully takes off her armor.

“Ser,” Brienne breathes, softly, and Pod smiles because him! a knight! but then she mutters, “ _Jaime,_ ” and the way she says it, unbidden, makes Pod blush so hard he nearly sweats.

He knows his lady ser has something...special with ser Jaime. _I would suggest not trying to seduce her,_ ser Jaime told Pod when he told him of his assignment. _She’s unsightly but it does get lonely on the road, and she would not hesitate to rid you of your cock if you try to put it in her._ Pod doesn’t think of her that way; in fact he thinks she’s magnificent. But in a respectful way. Like a squire would admire a knight, because she is one to him, even if she scolds him for calling her as such. However, he’s pretty sure ser Jaime _does_ think about lady Brienne in that way, because the look they shared when they parted was anything but nothing.

Thankfully, she doesn’t appear to be gravely injured underneath her armor. The Hound gave her a hell of a beating. Nearly killed her — Pod saw some of the fight while trying to chase Arya, saw Brienne and the Hound swinging their swords and then discarding them in favor of using the strength of their bodies, kicking and punching brutal blows that would stagger any other fighter unconscious.

Pod isn’t sure if she will survive. He knows that sometimes, there is damage inside the body that the eye cannot see.

He thinks maybe he should try to heft her onto a horse so he can find help, but he knows he can’t lift her and there is nobody for miles and miles...

She can’t die. Can’t. He can’t have failed her, and Arya Stark can’t have escaped so she would have died for nothing.

He looks down at her, his lady ser, laying sprawled on the ground. She is the strongest person Pod has ever known — in body and spirit — so he decides then that she will not die.

He treats her wounds the best he can, cleaning her face and putting salve on the most nasty looking cuts. She still sleeps but she asks for ser Jaime again, her voice low and scared — _ser, please, I won’t let you down, Jaime, please come back for me, I have Oathkeeper—_

Pod pretends he doesn’t hear.

The sun is setting by the time he’s done tending to her, and he makes a fire with flint and steel like she taught him. It takes him only three tries to get it going. He thinks his lady ser would be proud, in her own way — which is her jaw clenching and her not insulting him.

He eats, watches her, makes sure she keeps breathing. He watches all night and into the next morning and his faith in her doesn’t waver and then

she gasps like she’s come up from under the surface of water and her hands scramble at her front like she’s checking to make sure she’s whole and she yells, pained — Pod tries to calm her, touch her arm but that’s the wrong thing to do because she smacks him in the face.

“Ser — my lady!” He brings his hand to his lip, it comes back bloody. That seems to bring her out of her panic. She blinks at him.

“Why did you remove my armor?” she snaps, angry. Her voice is hoarse.

“Y-you were badly hurt!” he sputters. “I had to so I could see—”

“I didn’t give you permission.”

“You were _unconscious_.”

“ _Humph_ ,” lady Brienne, not ser, says.

Now that she’s awake and talking, Pod allows himself a grin. He bites down on the laugh, though. Where she hit his mouth still hurts.

“Ser Jaime was right,” he says. “He said you were as stubborn as they come.”

He was right — her eyes soften at the mention of the golden knight’s name.

“That’s hypocritical, coming from ser Jaime,” she says, after a few moments. She sighs. “Podrick, I’m sorry, I just — it is disorienting to wake up injured and not knowing how one got in a situation.”

“Of course, my lady.”

“And I’m sorry I hit you. I split your lip open.”

“It will heal, ser. My lady.”

She nods, looks down her lap, where her trousers are bloody. Pod diverts his eyes. She notices.

“It’s — I will be fine,” she says. “He kicked me...there, which I suppose is fair play since I punched him in the balls. And then I tore his ear from his head with my teeth.”

That explains the blood on her chin.

“You fight like the Warrior,” Pod says, glowing all over.

She scoffs. She tries to sit up, but she lets out a sharp gasp of pain.

“My shoulder is dislocated. I need your...help,” she says, reluctantly. She holds out her hand for him to hold and tells him to _yank hard_ and there’s a _POP!_ and she screams so loudly he feels sick.

“Thank you.” She rotates her arm, and she doesn’t cry out in pain again, so he supposes it’s fine now.

“I’m sorry I lost Arya,” he says. “You were battling to the death and I couldn’t keep track of a little girl.”

“She didn’t want to go with me,” Brienne says. “She doesn’t seem to be the type who does something she doesn’t want to do.”

Pod is familiar with that type — Brienne argues when he makes her drink water and when he suggests she change clothes and when he makes her eat and stay _still_ for a day. She’s harsh, but he knows she’s in pain, so he doesn’t think any of it. He’s just glad that she’s alive and well enough _to_ argue with him.

At night, she cleans blood and dirt from her sword.

“You kept calling out for him. Ser Jaime. While you were out.”

He doesn’t know why he says it but her scathing blue eyes flash up at him and it feels dangerous: be careful. He thinks he should stop talking but then he remembers how she looked back at ser Jaime as she rode away from him, and then didn’t speak for hours and hours.

“You asked him to help you,” Pod says. “You said he would come back for you.”

Her skin flushes pink down to her collar.

“A moment of weakness.” She runs her hand over the hilt of her sword, all red and gold of Lannister. “It doesn’t mean anything. We...trust each other.”

“Of course, ser, my lady.” A pause. “Don’t worry. We will find the Stark girls, and fulfill your oath. And ser Jaime’s.”

His lady _humphs_ again and then maybe, there’s a smile.

**Author's Note:**

>  _Sanguine_ has two different meanings, as the english language often does. One definition is "optimistic and positive" and another is "bloody, red."
> 
> I had this idea for a while and I kept forgetting that at this time in the story, they didn't get along well. It was difficult to write them that way.


End file.
